IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective

Shifting Perspectives for Better Parenting

• Ben Pugh • Episode 242

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In this episode, we explore how shifting your perspective can transform your parenting experience. Using a real-life example from a high school basketball game, I dive into the difference between perception and perspective—and how both affect the way we see and interpret our teen’s behavior.

Learn how emotional attachments, biases, and desired outcomes shape what we see and how we respond. I’ll share simple strategies to question your perception, model empathy, and strengthen your connection with your teen.

Discover how seeing the world through a clearer lens can help you build rock-solid relationships and have a lasting impact on your teen’s life.

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I'm Ben Pugh, and you're listening to Impact Parenting with Perspective, episode 242. This podcast is all about helping parents manage the mental and emotional drama that comes with parenting teens. So they can focus on what's most important, building rock solid relationships and having a powerful impact on their teen's life. Join me each week as I dive into real tools to help you and your teen turn struggles into strengths.

Ben:

Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being here. Um, today I want to talk about something that I've been noticing a lot lately, and that is perception and perspective and how we all have such unique ways of seeing things. And I want to give you a real life example. This actually happened. In my life yesterday, I was at my local high school's girls basketball game and I was sitting next to another dad and we were literally side by side seeing the game unfold before us and there is. This gentleman, myself, my wife, and my nine year old son, and we're watching this game, and there was this play where the ball got knocked out of bounds. And I saw I thought that we knocked the ball out of bounds, like our team, the home team, we knocked the ball out of bounds. This other dad, like I didn't say anything, but he started yelling at the ref. He's like, come on ref, that was clearly off dark was the other team's color. And he thought it was off the other team. I thought it was off our team, which by the way is what the ref saw and how the ref called it. And my nine year old was like, Oh, that was such a bad call. We all saw the same game. We're all watching the same game. We saw the same thing happen. Yet I want you to explore how could two people, me and this other dad watching the same play, how could we see it so differently? And that is a powerful question to explore, especially in today's world. right now I see a lot of hate going on. In social media based on politics, based on opinions, based on beliefs. And I want you to just be aware that these are different perceptions and how you view reality. Or your perspective or the perception through which you experience reality that will shape your experience of reality. So I want to share this definition of perception. Perception is what we see or sense in the moment. It's often automatic and influenced by what's happening right in front of us or around us. And so I wanted to share that with you because we can see like me and this dad, we saw the same thing. He was slightly farther away, but his perception was influenced by. Some variables now. He was a little bit further away Like seriously, we were just right next to each other So we're pretty close to the same angle and we were on the home team side and this particular play happened On the far end of the court from us and so we didn't have the best view like the ref who called it probably had the best view and There were some other attachments that he had. I don't have anyone playing on that team. We just go to support the local high school team. Uh, this man's wife is the head coach of the girls team and we just enjoy basketball. So I wasn't as emotionally. Attached is this other dad was because his daughter was playing and his wife is the head coach. And so even these differences in attachment or emotional investment change our perception and how we. See things now in parenting. This is important to understand oftentimes, it's our attachment or the desired outcome that is skewing our perception and sometimes we might have distractions that are skewing our perception when it comes to what we see our teenager experiencing the perception that we see Based on like how successful or unsuccessful we might think our teen is or isn't, or that the world around them might think about them. And this is important to understand because when you can question your perception and when you can ask yourself, what might be skewing my perception? What am I attached to here? What is the desired outcome that I want to see? What are my distractions? It can help you clear the lens through which you look at the world. Now let's talk about perspective, perspective. So perception is how we see what's going on. Perspective is a little bit more like how we interpret what we see. So a definition could be perspective is the lens. We use to make sense of what we perceive, and this lens is shaped by our past experiences, our beliefs, our mindset. It's basically how we think about things now in this. A basketball example, this dad's perspective was shaped by his deeper emotional connection to the team. Like he had a daughter playing, his wife was a coach. Now, my perspective, I believe, was a little bit more neutral. I didn't really care who won the game. Yes, I wanted our home team to win, but When I go watch my son's team, like I am way more attached. I am way more critical of the refs. I can see that my perspective is skewed. And in this game, I didn't really care. And I felt like my perception was less skewed and more emotionally neutral. So. One of the things that I think is important to point out, similar to perception, our perspective can be viewed by how we think about things. in the past, like every, so I've been involved with sports enough to know that refs aren't perfect. I've been a ref. I actually believe it's really hard to show up and neutrally ref a game without any bias. One time I was reffing a little league football game and man, the head coach was so annoying. I had to intentionally get past that bias. Like I didn't like the coach, but I didn't want that to impact how I called the game. So these past experiences. Can skew your perspective. And if you're ever curious, like why do me and my teen have such different perspectives, look at your experience versus your teens experience. They are experiencing a completely different world from the one that we are experiencing just because their perspective is different. deep emotional connection can skew your perspective and desired outcomes. Just like when we were talking about. Perception, these desired outcomes can also skew your perspective. So, why is it important that we question both? When it comes to perception, it is really easy to assume that what we perceive is the truth, or is accurate. But, it's A fact that our perception can be flawed by our biases, by our emotions, and even by distractions. And when we can realize that, like a lot of the fighting that I'm seeing on Facebook or on Instagram, it's when people assume, no, my My perception is the right one, yours is wrong. And then they're fighting with someone else who thinks, no, mine is right and yours is wrong. And when I see parents and teens fighting, this is the case. One thinks that they're right and the other is wrong and the other thinks, no, no, I'm right and they're wrong. And this is why it's so important that we question. Our perceptions. And I like to ask myself, like, what am I really seeing here? What am I missing? That is one of my favorite questions to ask my teenagers. If we have a disagreement, I like to ask, Hey, what am I missing? What do I not understand? And typically my teens are pretty good at telling me what they think I'm missing. And that just helps me view As they view it. So that gives me an opportunity to look into the way they're perceiving things. Now let's talk about perspective. Our perspective shapes, how we interpret. Everything we perceive, if we interpret events through a lens of negativity or attachment or fear, or I talk about the difference between the victim mindset and the hero mindset, all of this will impact our perspective and it will distort what we see. If, like when I go to basketball games, like we at home games sometimes complain about our referees, like we get bad calls and of course we're cheering for the home team. So that skews our perception anyways. Well now we have this perspective that man, the refs are always picking on our team. Why do they hate us so bad? Yeah. One of the games we had a ref who was a teacher at the school that we were playing at. And we're like, why would you let a teacher ref a game that involves their own school? We have this bias and we believe that the ref is calling an unfair game. When you can question changes how you experience the moment. So, let's explore how you can apply this to your life and to parenting. It's important to recognize And understand how your attachments and your desired outcome can skew what you're perceiving. And ask yourself questions like, why am I emotionally invested? Like, what is the outcome that I'm attached to? And when you can recognize your own biases, This will then help you understand your teens biases, just like you have biases that are impacting your perception. Your teen is also emotionally invested and they have a desired outcome and they have their own biases. And I believe that when you can identify your own biases, it makes it easier to then see your teens biases, which will then help you see things from a more clear. Now, I think it's important to always question your perspective. Ask yourself, what lens am I using to interpret this situation? Am I using my dad lens or am I using my teenage lens? Sometimes if I can just explore, how would I have handled this back when I was 18? That helps me. Look at it through a different lens. Sometimes I even like to explore how would my wife had handled this as a teenager? Because we were very different people. She's much more methodical and planned. When I was a teen, I was just an impulsive dude, like whatever felt right. The spur of the moment. When I can practice seeing things through different lenses, it helps me. identify the problem or the distortion with my lens. And it helps me realize and validate why other people might have distortions or why they might see things a certain way. And then this helps you get to the point where you can practice. Empathy while I was sitting at that basketball game and that dad was so upset at the refs, which by the way, that's me sometimes at my son's basketball games, which I'm working on, but I was able to have empathy. I was able to appreciate why he might see things that way. I was able to appreciate, well. His wife is coaching, his daughter's playing. He obviously wants to win. He's seeing things through that lens and that's okay. And another powerful way that you can apply this to your life and especially to your parenting, if you can teach your teen this. process of recognizing your biases, questioning your perspective, practicing empathy. And by the way, the best way to teach this is by modeling this, but you can then help your teen question Their perspectives and their perceptions, which guys, by the way, those are, I almost use those interchangeably. They're super close, but once you help your team question their own perspectives and their own perceptions, especially in tough moments when they're emotionally charged, this can then help them step back and reflect. reflect on what they're experiencing, which will then allow them to respond more intentionally. So I want to invite you to do something. The next time you're in a disagreement or in a tough parenting moment, I want you to pause and ask yourself a couple questions. What What am I seeing? What meaning am I giving this? And how is my perspective shaping my interpretation of this? It has been so helpful. My son, my oldest, he's just about to finish high school. He's got a as close to a full time job as he can get. He's planning to go to college in the summer. And he and I don't always agree on how he's choosing to live his life and what he's doing when it comes to school or his job. And when I can ask myself, what am I actually seeing? Like, what are the facts here? And then when I can explore, well, how is my perspective shaping how I'm interpreting this? What meaning am I giving this? This shift helps me gain clarity about, Hey, what's really going on? This is my opinion about what's going on. This is his opinion and we're okay to have different perspectives and different opinions. And that's helped us have a better relationship. So I want to tie this back to that basketball game. At the end of the day, the refs call was what it was. He might've been wrong. Or maybe. I saw it wrong. Maybe the ref saw it wrong. And maybe this dad and some of the players on the court from our team were like, no, that's our ball. None of that really matters. What matters most is how each of us perceive that moment. And interpret it as a coach. I tell my players all the time, the refs don't care about the outcome of the game. They don't care about, like, they're just doing the best that they can. If you can perceive this as, okay, yeah, the ref made a mistake. That's okay. Mistakes happen in sports. I can't control it. I'm just going to keep being the best player that. It changes how you perceive reality. Those girls didn't give up. They played a great game, whether that was a good call or a bad call. And that's the important thing. Don't let the little call that you disagree with, or someone else's different perspective, or someone else's different perception of what's happening derail you. You get to choose what you make it mean for you. So take some time, reflect on how your perceptions and how your perspectives are impacting your life and your parenting and explore how you might see things differently if you looked. From a different angle. I want to also invite you guys. I have a weekly email. probably the easiest way to go get on that email, in the show notes for the podcast, you can go download my, let's see, what do I have? The daily parenting debrief, which by the way, this is a powerful tool to help you explore your perceptions. and your perspectives. When you do a daily parenting debrief, it will help you understand what it is you are looking at out of alignment with who you want to be. And you can go get that parenting debrief. It's free. It's a simple guide. You can find it in the show notes. You can just go to benpughcoaching.com/podcast and that will take you straight to my podcast and the most recent one will be on the top. Go ahead and go download the daily parenting debrief and that will get you on my email list right now. Probably the easiest way to work with me is by emailing me and saying, Ben, I'd like to work with you. Or me and my husband would like to work with you, or you know what? I think you'd be a great fit for my teen. And then I can email you back and say, Hey, here's a link to my calendar. Go sign up for a free consultation. And I'm giving people a free coaching call, sometimes a couple of free coaching calls just to make sure that we're a good fit and to make sure that I can help you. So if you think you might be interested in working with me, go get the parenting debrief and. Sign up to my email list and anytime you get an email from me, I send out emails on Friday. Simply hit reply and say, Hey Ben, we'd like a free consultation and I'll send you the link so you can sign up right then. All right, with that, I'll let you go. And I will see you next week.